In the last piece of this blog series, we listed the long-term health consequences of diabetes. Because diabetes is, by definition, a disease that is defined by high glucose levels, exposure of the body to higher-than-normal glucose over long periods of time does cause many of these serious health consequences. But like everything in medical science, it’s not that simple. The abnormal regulation of glucose levels by the body leads to many other changes. These contribute to some or all the serious health consequences in poorly understood ways. The good news is that medical science does not need to understand why something occurs before it can identify ways to reduce or delay it from occurring. That is indeed the case for many of the long-term health consequences of diabetes.
Therapeutic approaches that are currently proven to reduce or prevent these consequences are listed in the table. As shown, they can be easily by remembered by the memory code: “ABCDE-S”.
The ABCDE-S of Reducing Serious Long-term Health Problems in Diabetes
A A1c Optimal* glucose or A1c levels
B BP Optimal* blood pressure control
C Cholesterol Optimal* LDL cholesterol levels using statins or other drugs
D Drugs Drugs proven to prevent serious outcomes
E Everyday Eating patterns and routine exercise or physical activity
S Stop Smoking Smoking magnifies the risk of diabetes
S Screening For eye disease, and foot disease by routine exams
S Self Care Taking charge of the diabetes with the health care team
*The definition of optimal levels is not the same for everyone – it needs to be personalized.
Everyone is different and the optimal combination of approaches for one person will not be optimal for another. The best way to personalize or tailor the right approach is by working closely with your healthcare team.
The next piece will focus on the drugs that are available in Canada to lower glucose levels and how they work.
About the author
Hertzel Gerstein
Hertzel is an endocrinologist and professor at McMaster University who is in high demand as a speaker, advocate, and educator on diabetes-related topics. His research focuses on using large, international randomized trials to identify and test new ways of preventing type 2 diabetes, reducing serious health outcomes like strokes and death, and achieving type 2 diabetes remissions.
